How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
"It's hard, ma'am, to be having much sympathy for them when, here, they're tryin' to kill me. When somebody's after your hide, it kind of tends to occupy your mind, if you know what I mean." (7.33)
Robert can't feel guilty about what he did because he's too worried about himself. That seems reasonable—though also maybe like an excuse. We mean, he killed and raped an 18-year-old. Surely most people would feel bad about that eventually?
Quote #8
I call on them to take personal responsibility for the role they are playing in the killing of this man if they uphold his death sentence.
When I finish speaking, Mr. Marsellus says that I have to understand that the Board members have not made the death-penalty law, nor do they enforce it. (8.78-79)
Some time after Robert's execution, Marsellus goes to jail for corruption and taking bribes. In that context, his argument that he isn't personally responsible seems like an excuse more than anything else. He knows he's doing wrong and that he's failing his own conscience. That knowledge, and Marsellus's later regret, doesn't help Robert, though.
Quote #9
Look, no matter what reasons you give to justify killing criminals, when you're there and you see it, when you watch it happen with your own eyes and are part of it, you feel dirty. (9.44)
Prejean is imagining what Major Coody, the person in charge of the executions, would have said if he could have talked publicly about capital punishment. Coody finds the work of setting up and orchestrating capital punishment personally painful: it makes him feel guilty. Prejean feels that this visceral guilt is a sign that something is wrong with execution. If the people who do it can sense it's immoral, then it's immoral. It's not just that no one should be executed; it's also that no one should be forced to execute a fellow human being.